After Guillaume Coustou

After GUILLAUME COUSTOU (Lyon, 1677- 1746), end of the 19th century.
"The hair of Marly".
Bronze and marble base.
Measurements. 16 x 16 x 8,5 cm.
This sculpture follows the model originally executed by Guillaume Coustou the Elder between 1739 and 1745, commissioned by King Louis XV to decorate the entrance of the palace of Marly, summer residence of the French monarchy. The version referred to here, made in the late nineteenth century, belongs to the prolific series of reproductions and reductions that multiplied in the context of the rise of academicism and bourgeois collecting of the period. These replicas, cast in bronze or carved in marble, sought to bring the great emblems of French classical art to the cultured public of the time.
Formally, the work presents an unbridled, rearing horse, restrained by a young man who tries to control its impetus. The composition, of strong helicoidal dynamism, is articulated by a game of ascending diagonals that translate the muscular tension of the animal and the effort of the man. The vigorous modeling, the contrast between masses and voids, and the almost pictorial capture of movement give the group an unusual energy, a reflection of late Baroque aesthetics.
The Horses of Marly were conceived to flank the grand entrance of the Abreuvoir de Marly, where they symbolized the vigor and majesty of the monarchy. After the French Revolution, the original sculptures were moved to the Champs-Élysées in Paris, and later to the Louvre Museum, where the marble copies are preserved today.
During the 19th century, at the height of the expansion of late neoclassicism and French academicism, Coustou's works became paradigmatic models of study in the Fine Arts Schools and artistic foundries of Paris, being reproduced in different formats as symbols of refinement and the French classical heritage.
Guillaume Coustou the Elder was born into a family of sculptors. He trained in the workshop of Antoine Coysevox, his uncle, who was a sculptor at the court of Louis XIV and one of the key figures of the French Baroque.
In 1697, Coustou entered the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, and subsequently won the Prix de Rome, which allowed him to perfect his training in Italy, where he closely studied classical statuary and Italian Mannerism.
Upon his return to France, he was appointed Sculptor to the King, working on important royal commissions for Versailles, Marly and other royal sites.